Today you have the opportunity to protect our youth, and it will take less than 30 seconds!

Join us in supporting our friends at Legacy, by signing a petition urging the FDA to ban mentholated cigarettes! Click the link now, let your voice be heard: http://bit.ly/ProtectYouthBanMenthol

Help us save more lives by asking the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to ban mentholated cigarettes. Evidence shows that newer and younger smokers use menthol cigarettes at dramatically higher rates than older, established smokers: nearly 48% of youth smokers ages 12-17 use menthol cigarettes compared to 31.5% of adult smokers over 26. The tobacco industry has also heavily marketed menthol cigarettes to minorities, and as a result, the menthol smoking rates among these communities are disproportionately high; 80 percent of African Americans who smoke, smoke menthol cigarettes.

The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, signed into law in 2009, banned all candy-flavored cigarettes. However menthol cigarettes were exempted from the ban while the FDA was required to analyze how menthol cigarettes impact public health.

Legacy, the nation’s largest public health foundation devoted to keeping young people from smoking and helping all smokers quit, has taken the position that the FDA should ban menthol cigarettes in the interest of public health. New studies show that removing menthol from the market could prevent up to 600,000 smoking-related premature deaths by 2050. A recent survey also found that a menthol ban is supported by a majority of Americans (56%), particularly African Americans (76%). The elimination of menthol cigarettes could prevent young people from ever starting to smoke and help countless others quit smoking.

Please take a moment to urge the FDA to ban mentholated cigarettes today! Sign this petition and send a message to FDA that you support a BAN on menthol products: http://bit.ly/ProtectYouthBanMenthol